> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tab Atkins Jr. [mailto:jackalmage@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 1:10 PM
>
> Since the default behavior in the current flexbox draft is to stretch in the
> align direction, I figured that should be the default behavior in my proposal
> too, so I have "height:auto" flex the height as if it was "1fl". However, if
> you're providing a flexible margin or padding, you probably know what you're
> doing, and so "auto" acts like "fit-content" in that case. I had "width" act the
> same way for symmetry, though that's not the default behavior in the
> current Flexbox draft.
Sorry I didn't realize this is about alignment, in vertical flex-box. In that case sure, that is correct, "auto" and "1fl" are the same thing.
> Ah, I wasn't talking about that complexity. Yeah, the specification and
> implementation is simple enough. I just mean the additional complexity of
> having it at all. I don't like having two identical ways to do things - in an ideal
> world, every problem an author runs into has a single simple solution. (I
> suppose I've drunk too much of the Python koolaid. ^_^)
I want some of what you are drinking too)
We really have to think about usability first. The whole idea of flexbox is usability - nearly everything that it does can be achieved by tables or floats. It is just a pain. So I don't think we should eliminate simple ways to do simple things just because it is not the only way...
> box-align:baseline is the only thing that's still giving
> me some difficulty, and I suspect that if I want to hit that use-case I'll just
> have to bite the bullet and inject some extra complexity into the model. I
> think it's the least useful of the box-align values, though, so I'm okay with not
> hitting it immediately.
I think that is the key decision for 'box-align'. If we decide that baseline alignment is just unnecessary (and maybe it is), we can alignment can be totally redundant and then it can be dropped. If it is still needed for 'baseline' it should have before/after/middle too.